Poison Pen Letters to Myself

by Romany Rivers

Just give me a clear mirror

  So that I can take a good long look

  And see just who the hell I am

  Addressee Unknown

  Moving on, burning bridges and turning your back on old familiar haunts. Consciously saying goodbye and refusing to return. Walking with back straight, never once turning around lest the fear take hold and somehow you find yourself back where you started. Running now, before that little voice gains momentum and insists that your actions are unreasonable. Leaping and hurtling towards a future uncertain, without forwarding address, without knowledge of a safe haven nearby. Knowing only that in your heart, this is the right thing to do. Trusting that your feet will guide you to a place of peace.

  Still, those around you do not understand. You wish to move away from the place they are still comfortable in. Voices of concern, of advice, of insistence fill your mind as you head towards distant shores. Perhaps you lie. Lie to everyone, including yourself. Perhaps you say that you will indeed send back a letter, a card, a greeting. Perhaps you say that you will indeed pass on a forwarding address when you know where you will be. Perhaps you will, for a select few. For those who love you enough to let you go. For those who understand your journey, your need to move past your past, your desire to find a sanctuary.

  The honest truth is, you don’t know where you will be, or whether you will ever reach your destination. Perhaps you never will find what you seek. Perhaps you will always be moving on, moving away, moving forward. In your wake you leave a memory that fades, disappears into the forever changing landscape until it is unrecognisable. Those left behind will hastily inscribed ‘Addressee Unknown’, and continue with their busy lives.

  When you look back at the person who was, they will be unrecognisable to you also. That person no longer exists. Not here, not there, not anywhere. You too will hastily inscribe ‘Addressee Unknown’ and you too will go about your busy life, without more than passing thought of what once was.

  Dedication

  Born as Romany Rivers

  Now I am,

  And I feel there is no light in my life

  But that which was there in the beginning

  And will be there at the end

  The Goddess guides us all

  To walk her path

  And this day I felt that I have long ago

  Placed my feet upon her path

  And yet have only walked it in my dreams

  I have pledged myself to thee

  Mother of all, and to you the Hunter,

  The consort of love and laughter

  And safe in this knowledge of re-awakening –

  I am born all over again.

  Universal Self

  I have so much to achieve

  For you, for them, for me

  I feel old, young and ageless

  But time keeps me running out

  I move faster than the speed of light

  So that I can be there and here

  All at the same time

  I think there must be more than one of me

  I catch myself all the time

  Looking the same but different somehow

  And I surprise myself

  Maybe that is why you all look so surprised

  When occasionally

  I am not to be found anywhere

  Dear John

  There was a man once

  Who held me in his arms

  Who touched me deep inside

  Who smothered me in his insecurities

  I held him in my heart

  I felt him in my mind

  I took him into me

  Without him knowing

  Who I was

  Who I am

  Who I will be

  He made me feel at home

  He made me want to run away

  I stayed bound to his smile

  Tied into his unnecessary jealousies

  He felt without reason

  Pulled me close without seeing

  Touched without believing

  I felt with intention

  Pulled him close with understanding

  Touched him with analysis

  Knowing that

  Every minute I embraced

  His strangeness

  His freshness

  His anger

  His laughter

  I was creating a memory

  That would ease my loneliness

  In times to come

  Fat Happy Pre-packaged Dreams

  The paper bag danced with the breeze

  Teasing taunting titillating

  I heard someone say a curse for the mess of today

  I left it to dance for minutes

  Before I put it away

  To rot within our mothers belly

  A waste product of a mentality

  Born when we stopped feeling hungry

  I Pray

  I walk the woodland paths

  And know

  I’ll never be alone

  I hear the whispering leaves

  The subtle way they call me home

  I feel the touch of earth

  The ways its roots, they pull me in

  Connects the universe

  Forever in eternal spin

  I pray that Mother Earth will turn each day

  I hear the storm arrive

  The whistling wind, it whips on by

  It makes me feel alive

  It gives me wings

  It makes me fly

  I hear the whispered words

  Rushing past upon the breeze

  A sense of wisdom heard

  That lifts me up and sets me free

  I pray the winds, they will forever change

  And I will not take for granted

  That which is there for me

  No, I will not take for granted….

  Scrying

  Look into the blackened glass

  See the images of time gone past

  Watch the sorrow, feel the pain

  Hear the laughter amidst the rain

  From this past we must learn

  For it relives now as the wheel turns

  What was once will be again

  Time gone the time has come

  We must accept all our fears

  What was done will not be undone

  Our future is held loosely

  By the hands of our young

  They cannot see beyond our words

  Tales of life woven and spun

  I can see images of the future

  Within the darkness before me

  But they appear older than the lives

  Of those that spawned me

  What have we done?

  What will we do?

  The images fade without answers

  It is up to me and you.

  Destiny

  The cards slip through my hands

  I drift into the world of unreality

  Of possibilities

  Probabilities

  But never inevitabilities

  Sleep Deep

  We welcome you and say farewell little one,

  All within the same breath

  We hold you in our hearts dear one,

  Sense the presence you have left

  For your journey with us was swift and brief

  But your influence as long as memories

  We hold each other within our grief

  But understand it was not to be

  No sounds of footsteps upon the floor

  No sticky finger marks upon the walls

  No toys embedded within sofa cushions

  No gleeful giggles or worried calls

  These childhood things are not the gifts you bring,

  But you impart a gift like no other

  From your very soul you have given a blessing

  The chance to become a Father and a Mother

  Your life on Earth been and gone

  Now sleep deep little one

  Lake of Unshed

  You kissed
away my tears and I was

  Refreshed

  I try to smile with you

  But I think I always look confused

  Bemused

  Our lives are strange

  Together in a separate fashion

  Or are we separate but still together?

  We talk about children of today and tomorrow

  Our children

  Or just hers and his and theirs and they will be soons?

  I wonder if we can stay in this business partnership

  Talking

  Voting

  Agreeing

  Negotiating

  When will we argue?

  Purge?

  Scream?

  And run away?

  Is that not how things are done today?

  Are we Saints to be raised unto the heavens?

  A light of inspiration for others?

  Or are we just belying the truth?

  Look at everyone around us

  See in their eyes the ice blue of reflection

  And yet I cannot see where we are

  I see us in the middle ground of a painting

  The mountains loom

  Will we ever surpass them?

  Or are we too tired from teamwork

  Swimming

  Across a lake of green

  The lake of hard work

  A good relationship

  Time off together

  Time away with friends

  Shared interests and differing hobbies

  A deep satisfying beautiful azure-green lake of time well spent

  But I wonder

  Truly

  Is this not a lake of stored

  Unshed

  Tears?

  Passing Through

  Too many faces

  Not enough names

  Too many places

  So many the same

  Too much freedom

  Not enough focus

  Too many dreams

  So many so hopeless

  My life on my back

  I carry my past with me

  Feeling overexposed

  But no one takes the time to see

  Take me down

  Take me in

  All you see is my sore feet

  Musings

  Every time I see her

  She makes me smile before I see her eyes

  I cannot watch her dance without thinking of a thousand poetical words

  They run through my mind

  They pass too fast for my typing fingers

  But remain linger and last

  In ways I cannot explain

  Her grace astounds me

  Defying gravity

  Silver fish in a rainbow river

  She likes the

  Spaces

  Between

  The

  Words

  As much as the language itself

  And this teaches me something new always

  Lessons gentle, salty and severe

  She speaks with an Elvish tongue

  That only the trees can hear

  I catch the whispering amongst the branches

  As they all talk about her in ages past

  They will continue to discuss her

  In lives yet realised

  I think she reflects a part of me

  Not yet discovered

  Like a sandcastle in the mind

  Fragile and grainy

  Not yet created

  Until the summer months

  But I like autumn

  I like the way she looks

  Like the leaves changing

  Red gold green honey

  She looks like the cold snappy refreshing days that brighten your cheeks

  Warm your heart and bring blood

  Rushing in response

  To the morning breeze

  I feel my blood sluggish now

  Speeding up

  Rushing

  Weaving

  Knitting together in my veins to re-create my soul

  I am always surprised how one person

  Can make such a difference without action, words or conscious inspiration

  This is just one of the ways she appears to me

  A muse

  Undine

  Hold my hand

  Please walk along beside me

  I am a cardinal water spirit

  Fast flowing free

  Let me take you underground

  Into the caverns of the soul

  If you can stop the tide I will give you back

  Old opportunities you let go

  I am kiss-of-life giving

  I will second chance restore

  Just hold my hand

  And take a walk along my river

  Uncertain

  I was shocked and disbelieving

  When you spoke to me

  It was not like you whispered

  Not like you crept into my bedroom at dawn and slowly roused me from sleep

  You laughed and danced and shouted and skipped

  Into my vision

  You found me amusing

  I challenged your very existence

  Your right to reality

  Well, can you blame me?

  I was happy tucked up in abstract philosophy

  Am happy with the concept of never, forever and always still

  But you told me to doubt my own reality

  You used my abstract against me

  And should I find myself in existence

  I should accept the possibilities

  Being offered to me

  I guess we should always accept the possibility of being wrong

  Or right

  Or unsure anymore

  Well if you keep talking

  I will have to keep listening

  Hope

  (For Mark)

  I wanted to wake up in your arms

  But I stole away under the soft moon

  I wanted to lay and just hold you while you slept

  But I was pulled away too soon

  I wanted to listen to you breathing

  I wanted to hear you speak

  Of dreams yet unfulfilled

  Of a life that could be better

  Of a world that could be peaceful

  Of me, and that I could be happy

  If I could

  I would

  Go back

  And kiss you before you kissed me

  And although I know it can’t be

  It was simple reality that made me

  Happy

  Unconscious Creativity

  There is a divine comedy within creation

  That encourages us to let go

  Not to take ourselves too seriously

  To simply go with the flow

  For every time I raise my pen

  And battle with the page

  I demand my own creativity

  Only to find I have nothing to say

  But in the wee hours of darkness

  When I am too tired to fight

  Inspiration sneaks upon me

  Fills my eyes with light

  Blindly I stumble forth

  All physical form left behind

  And I see all the methods of

  Painting between the lies

  I hide a message of remembrance

  Within every stroke of fate

  To remind myself of divine

  When hungry and paint covered, I awake…

  Late

  I heard my name

  When you called me again today

  But I am forever the rabbit late

  And I merely ran away

  It wasn’t until I stopped

  And heard no sound upon the breeze

  That I realised if I stopped listening

  You would stop calling to me

  Listening

  She smiles at me

  And in her eye I see

  All the things she would say to me

  If she but onl
y had the words

  Then again I am aware

  Whenever I feel her near

  That it is I who needs to hear

  The stories I never heard

  I raise my eyes

  And seek her sight

  And bathe within her soft light

  To ease my troubled soul

  I wax and wane

  She does the same

  And together we play the game

  Of phases to become whole

  Beyond Tomorrow

  Within the fire we all become

  Ancient man mesmerised

  The simple tasks tire the hands

  The good life, a hard life

  There is no more bartering

  Haggling, begging and coaxing

  We are beyond the desire for more

  No more hoping

  Within the water we all become

  The reason for living and loving

  The fetch water carry wood

  A philosophy of having

  There is no more waterfall

  Overspill, cascade of emotion

  We are beyond the stagnant

  Carried away in tidal motion

  Within the earth we all become

  A nurtured plant with face

  Lifted towards the sun

  Moving in place

  There is no more receiving

  Merely sowing and reaping

  We are beyond the taking

  Storing and heaping

  Within the wind we all become

  The cry of voices unleashed and free

  The wind removes the wool from our eyes

  And finally we can see

  There is no more forgiving

  No more ifs, buts, I wish, I need

  We are beyond the arguments

  It simply is, and we simply be

  With

  With the fire we burn to survive

  With water we respect our lives

  With earth we learn a new way

  With the wind we sing a new day

  This Light

  I sit within the spotlight

  The stage in darkness lies

  Preparing to perform

  The arts of times gone by

  The light washes down

  Upon my upturned face

  My tools about me shine

  Blessed by unearthly grace

  Within the shadows I hear

  Soft anticipating sighs

  Waiting for my hands to move